Why are the turnaround times in my confirmation email different than those stated online?

Richard Photo Lab

January 18, 2018 00:12

The turnarounds stated on our website and social media reflect our average turnaround time, while the turnarounds stated in your confirmation email reflect our guaranteed turnaround times. Both are measured in business days.

The average turnaround time is the average number of days it took us to complete an order the previous week. To determine this number, we add up the total number of days it took to complete each order, and divide it by the total number of orders.

Example: if 50 orders were completed in one day, 30 orders in 3 days, and 20 orders in 5 days, then the average is (50 days + 90 days + 100 days) ÷ 100 orders = 2.4 days.

Variables that influence how close the completion time of your order is to the average turnaround time are:

The number of rolls you send—high roll counts take longer to complete.

The quality/consistency of your exposures—film that needs extra love and attention from our scanners to achieve the best results will take longer.

The size of your scans—large scans take a bit longer to produce and go through our quality assurance checks, especially for black & white film.

Special requests—things like roll numbering, toy cameras, cross processing, pushes/pulls, and applying a color profile you built with us through the Color PAC process can all add to your turnaround time.

Your shipping method—the earlier in the day your film gets to the lab, the faster we can get it into production. We recommend Priority Shipping with FedEx.

The guaranteed turnaround time is the time in which we expect your scans will be delivered, regardless of other variables like those listed above. Though never anticipated, we will contact you if special circumstances occur that affect this time.